'YOU' star Penn Badgley launched his career in Seattle as a child
2After months of waiting, Netflix show “YOU” is back for Season 4.
The psychological thriller is based on an obsessive man named Joe who stops at nothing to find love — even murder.
Penn Badgley stars and narrates the series.
The seeds for his voicework were planted decades ago, when he lived in western Washington and took his first professional job at a now-defunct radio station.
Season 4 finds Joe across the pond in London, searching for Marienne — "the one who got away” (played by Tati Gabrielle.) He tries to escape his bloody past by posing as a college professor, where he meets student Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman.) He also falls in with a high class and hard partying crowd including troubled couple Adam and Lady Phoebe (Lukas Gage and Tilly Keeper) and author-turned-politician Rhys (Ed Speelers.)
Entertainment reporter Kim Holcomb talked to the cast via Zoom.
HOLCOMB: "How much of your mastery of (narration) do you attribute to your work on Seattle children’s radio station KidStar?”
BADGLEY: “Some of it, some of it. It’s where I really started any kind of professional work, and it is sort of like coming home in a vocal booth. There is something there that I loved then, and it turned into acting, but there is something about a vocal performance that I do love. You know what I just recalled, I was on the cover of some sort of Seattle Times art section, they were doing a story on KidStar and I was the kid they used."
HOLCOMB: "Is this the most 'you' that Joe has ever looked on a season of ‘You?’"
BADGLEY: "Yeah, it's the most that Joe has looked like me because the clean-cut thing is very rarely how I ever look in person.”
HOLCOMB: "(Tilly and Lukas,) your characters are described as ‘the most insane, damaged people on earth. Is that fair or would you like to defend your character's honors?"
KEEPER: "I have a lot of love for Phoebe and Adam, but they're pretty insane. They've got no sense of reality whatsoever."
GAGE: “They need therapy and couple’s therapy.”
HOLCOMB: “Lukas, can I ask you a bananas question? When you are snorting something off a table, what is it and does it hurt?”
GAGE: “It's Vitamin C, I think it is — or powdered milk. I think I asked for Vitamin C because I’m lactose-intolerant. It hurts! I got a nosebleed because I was trying to look cool and know what I was doing and shoved the bill up my nose so that was my fault, not production's, I take full responsibility."
HOLCOMB: “We hear Joe’s internal dialogue on the show — what was your internal dialogue when you shot your first scene?”
HICKMAN: "One of the first people I met was Penn, we did our screen tests together. And as soon as I met him I thought, 'Oh this is going to be great.’ I was going home every night, which I never do — I think that's probably what made me feel more relaxed, actually."
HOLCOMB: "Are people trying to get you to give up the goods?"
HICKMAN: "A lot of my friends are like, 'Do you die, who dies, who gets killed?’ That was quite annoying — you finish work at the end of the day and you want to come home and tell your friends and family about it, and you actually can't."
HOLCOMB: “(Ed,) Joe and your character bond over commonalities. Did you and Penn bond over anything in real life?”
SPEELERS: “Yeah, we did. We both have a young family, we're both used to being away from them, we have a similar passion for music."
HOLCOMB: "Marienne runs away from Joe. What makes you run towards Penn in real life, what is his most endearing quality?”
GABRIELLE: “That is such a wonderful question! That touched my heart. Penn is one of the most generous, giving people that I've ever met."
HOLCOMB: “What do you hope audiences take away from Season 4?”
GABRIELLE: "There's a difference between appreciation and infatuation. And that we should all find the value in ourselves and others that is not a vision we've created of them, but seeing them as clearly as possible."
HOLCOMB: "To binge, or not to binge, what do you recommend?"
SPEELERS: "We should just take it back to the way it used to be in the '90s and a bit later. We used to watch one episode, allocate your time, go 'This is my 'You' night'. You turn your phone off, you turn everything off, and you watch it for an hour, whole-heartedly, and then you pick another night and you do the same thing again. Personally I think that's the way to go, it's more enjoyable."
“YOU” S4 is split into two parts. The first five episodes are streaming now on Netflix, and the final five debut on March 9.
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